Down the road, evening.

Again and again this relief, gratitude, disbelief nearly, that we can once more walk in daylight at six o'clock. I can see why, perhaps, they raised stones to ensure it.

Up the road, afternoon (Saturday)

Sunshine, people emerge like squirrels.  Blue sky in the standing water of the empty maize field, the silvered winter stalks inscribe it like a lost alphabet.  The inland hills sharp.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

Returning jump leads to the garage opposite, engine running, Mol requests a (very) quick walk.  A bright shimmer on the face of the water: an afterthought of the Christmas gales.

Up the road, morning.

Sunshine. Fieldfare in the ash tree shouts loud as a magpie. Little old dog, slow and distracted, cheerful.

My heart full and heavy as a silk purse filled with gold.

Down the road, evening.

There are splashes and flashes of light and shadow across the world, a theatre of sun and wind conducted from very high by a dancing cirrus djinn with ribboning fingers.

Up the road, afternoon.

Daddy-longlegs are everywhere, floundering stupidly over road and verges, banging into us.  Why aren't there birds to eat them?  The swallows could have feasted but it's too late, they're gone.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon.

The shadows of trout, red-finned and huge, drift then splash and churn the water noisily as I pass.  Oh please no, not the bloody Schubert Trout Suite earworm again...

Down the road, evening.

The sun has set on us, but not on the maize one field away, nor the masts on Bel-Air, nor the jet-trails above, nor the wings of six gulls flying.

Down the road, evening

There are plenty of swallows flying, but I realise they are no longer gathering in chattering crowds on the wires, or waking us early, singing from the gutters and aerial.

Down the road, Friday evening

Am odd patch of yellow catches my eye; we take the field track to see.  It is a single sunflower, with a round, pale centre, self-seeded among the feed cabbages.

Down the road, Thursday early evening.

Large white butterflies in their hundreds flutter everywhere like scraps of torn  paper, feeding, mating, dropping and dying, their bodies, or sometimes just their wings, littered on road and verges.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, Monday

At the edge of the water, a couple of enormous water beetles nudge around in the mud.  We had one like that in our pond once, which we named Gargantua.

Down the road, evening

The red tractor and trailer enters the cut wheatfield, and half submerges in choppy waves of straw. It will gather these up and turn them into golden studs of bales.

Down the road, evening.

Having long assumed it's a plane, discovering another a few miles away, I conclude next-door's tree is a flowerless tulip tree.  Odd, a tulip-less tulip tree, but perhaps not intentional.

Down the road, evening.

The sorrel was a rust-pink haze, the hogweed flowered and seeded in upward asymmetrical, art nouveau curves like something from the Paris metro.

Both are cut, will grow back.